Why no drilling for oil?

[El Tejon]

I refuse to let my voicemail interfere with my typing.

[The Annoyed Man]

Plastics being one of the major consumers of petroleum.

I thought plastic was the product of petroleum byproducts?  The same oil we use to make gasoline is used to make plastic - no?

[quatin]

Well OH MY GOD, apparently the world will die if we don't get those 2000 acres in ANWAR. What's the count down at now when those 2000 acres are used up?

[Monkeyleg]

That hardly qualifies as a rebuttal, quatin. And you didn't answer my question as to what makes ANWR so unique as opposed to, say, the Florida coast.

By the way, the projected production form ANWR is 780,000 to 850,000 barrels per day. That's roughly 15% of our current domestic production, and all from one area.

[taurusowner]

quatin, do you have a non-emotional reason not to drill in Alaska?

[quatin]

I'd hate to spam a thread with re-posts, but I already posted on reply #13 as to why and despite your enumerations of what the demand of oil does to the economy, I didn't catch on to how it addresses that post...unless you are implying that the ANWR is our last resort to prevent the downfall of the country.

[taurusowner]

Do you have a non-emotional reason for not wanting to drill ANWR?

[RocketMan]

Oil is not only used for fuel, paving materials, and plastics.  There are literally hundreds of things necessary to modern life that require petroleum.  Does the word "petrochemicals" mean anything to you, quatin?

[Desertdog]

I thought we needed oil just to drive our cars. I don't believe oil power plants produce much energy for the country, we are more reliant on natural gas and coal.

Have you ever seen a jet fighter or bomber run on anything that didn't come from oil?  Or any other piece of military such as tanks, trucks, jeeps, rardar, guided missles, Navy ships, and on and on and on.  How does the radar and guided missles use oil?  Petroleum is used in the insulation of the wiring, in building the radomes, running the generators in remote areas.

What about your cell phones, IPods, calculators?  They are all made with oil products.

You stop the oil and you will be back in the stone age in no time.  Can you imagine trying to build a house without any oil products.   Just look back into history as to how things were before we became a nation with oil and internal combustion engine.

[quatin]

You can make non-petroleum based plastics, there are non-petroleum based jet fuel, there are even non-petroleum based vehicle fuels. Don't tell me we are so dependent on petroleum that when the world supply runs out we're suddenly back into the stone age.

[RocketMan]

You can make non-petroleum based plastics, there are non-petroleum based jet fuel, there are even non-petroleum based vehicle fuels. Don't tell me we are so dependent on petroleum that when the world supply runs out we're suddenly back into the stone age.

But we cannot make them economically in sufficient quantities at this time.  Should we just do without until we can, ten or twelve years down the road?

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

You can make non-petroleum based plastics, there are non-petroleum based jet fuel, there are even non-petroleum based vehicle fuels. Don't tell me we are so dependent on petroleum that when the world supply runs out we're suddenly back into the stone age.

Sure, we could probably get by without natural crude oil.  It would be darned difficult, stupidly expensive, send everyone's cost of living way up, it would take a ridiculous amount of time and effort to switch all of the infrastructure over, and it would generally suck for all and sundry.  But yes, we could do it.

The real question is why on earth would we want to?  We have plenty of natural crude in the ground that we would be easier to use, cost much less, and work far better.  The only reason we don't use it is that we choose not to.  Or rather, some of us force the rest of us not to.

So, why on earth shouldn't we use the oil in ANWR?

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

quatin, do you have a non-emotional reason not to drill in Alaska?

I, too, would like to hear your response to this question.

[RocketMan]

quatin, do you have a non-emotional reason not to drill in Alaska?

I, too, would like to hear your response to this question.

Me, three.

[quatin]

That's always the excuse to not invest in alternate methods. Electric cars was developed over 100 years ago and what development have we seen on that since? Besides, now we're drifting away from the OP. Why is Alaska our last option? Is it really impossible to preserve Alaska without having our country come to an end?

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

So, umm, do you have a non-emotional reason not to drill in ANWR?

[Monkeyleg]

I just read today an article by an oil industry analyst. He said that, if we were to start drilling in areas where there's already some drilling infrastructure in place, the new oil would hit the market in one to three years.

He also said that, if the green light were given for drilling in ANWR, oil prices would drop $30 to $35 a barrel almost immediately.

But maybe the guy was just being emotional.

[roo_ster]

It took two years to go from zero to producing oil for the largest / largest producing rig in the Gulf of Mexico.  It went online a month or so ago, IIRC.

I expect similar timelines and a little more once the coasts are freed up to drilling.

The pretty part of ANWR is nowhere near the drilling sites.  The drilling sites are pestilential mud flats in the summer and frozen hell mud flats in the winter.  Even if they went insane and sprayed crude oil at random, they'd be despoiling...mud flats.

I recall an hilarious stunt GWB's interior secretary pulled a while back.  She had video & audio taken of the potential ANWR drilling locations taken during winter.  Constant, gale-force winds blowing bits of snow about, you guessed it, frozen mud flats.  In all directions.  Not a single tree, caribou, or tree-hugger to be seen.

Of course, all the eco-weenies cried foul for the obnoxious injection of fact into the debate.

[seeker_two]

I thought we needed oil just to drive our cars. I don't believe oil power plants produce much energy for the country, we are more reliant on natural gas and coal.

Have you ever seen a jet fighter or bomber run on anything that didn't come from oil?  Or any other piece of military such as tanks, trucks, jeeps, rardar, guided missles, Navy ships, and on and on and on.  How does the radar and guided missles use oil?  Petroleum is used in the insulation of the wiring, in building the radomes, running the generators in remote areas.

What about your cell phones, IPods, calculators?  They are all made with oil products.

You stop the oil and you will be back in the stone age in no time.  Can you imagine trying to build a house without any oil products.   Just look back into history as to how things were before we became a nation with oil and internal combustion engine.

Don't forget medical supplies....just walk around a doctor's clinic or hospital and note how much equipment is plastic-dependent.....

[grampster]

A fool and logic are soon separated.  Somehow the logic of those who are opposed to progress, American prosperity and the good life seem to get brain lock when talking about the means of attaining the above.  In the modern world, obtaining energy is not synonimous with pillaging and raping of the land.

The bases of the oil platforms off S. California are some of the best living reefs, lousy with sea life.  I suspect the base of oil rigs in ANWR would make good hunting blinds.  That is, if anything lived there that was worth hunting.
Show pictures of ANWR to the leftists and they'll cover their eyes.  They have invented mountains and pristine vales full of wild flowers.  They do not want their myths shattered.

[K Frame]

"Electric cars was developed over 100 years ago and what development have we seen on that since?"

Lots, actually. New forms of batteries, far more powerful, but smaller, electric motors, computerization that helps increase efficiency, among other things.

But the problems that faced electric cars 100 years ago STILL face automobiles today.

You can only store so much useful energy in a battery.

Fuel cell vehicles could very well be the electric vehicle wave of the future.

[K Frame]

The only potential benefit I could see from the world suddenly becoming oil free is that it would cause an enormous die off of humans over the next several years as famine and disease run rampant.

No oil for fertilizers, no oil for pesticides, no oil for farm machinery, no oil for transportation.

Oddly enough, the least technologically advanced societies would fare the best in such a situation.

[Jamisjockey]

From all the rhetoric from the idiots in Washington about alterative energy and no drilling for oil, I began to think; Why?

Are they setting themselves up to be multi-billionairs, by investing in the form of energy companies that they are saying we should be using,  Or trying to drive us to our knees so the Commies can take over with out firing a shot as one of their leaders said they would, about 40 years ago.

Or, even both of the above.

Ethanol.  Plus, its not popular to support big oil....as being "green" is the new religion.

[quatin]

You didn't address what I said earlier. If you allow drilling in ANWAR, why not open up drilling in the NPRA? Hey, after all the NPRA was CREATED as our backup Alaska oil reserve. If you think everything in the country will just stop working and people will start dying off without oil, let's open up the wild life refugees in Texas and Louisiana that has oil first. That will probably take less than 1-3 years to get it started.

[charby]

Interesting .pdf on Iowa's potential for oil and gas.

http://www.igsb.uiowa.edu/gsbpubs/pdf/RIFS-2006-2.pdf

looks like a lot of deep drilling.